What DO high tech grav tanks look like?
- Thread starter F33D
- Start date
phavoc said:
I did a lot of wargaming with Striker (well a Striker/Advanced Squad Leader hybrid in fact) at different tech levels back in the day and this is exactly how things worked out. Heavy tanks were just like MBTs with the added strategic and operational mobility you mentioned and the tactical advantges of being able to pop-up, dash, cross rivers and other such difficult terrain.
The air attack role was generally performed by fast grav sleds with just enough armour to withstand small arms and light AAA. Their main problems were acquiring targets when moving at the very high speeds they were capable of and surviving some lethal AAA coming their way (point defence fire control tied to VRF weapons be they slug or energy).
Just like WW2 the heavies had to keep their distance from enemy infantry especially in close terrain as the killing power of their support weapons generally kept pace with improvements in armour. Every time a grav tank moved there was a chance it was exposing one or more of its vulnerable faces.
The biggest game changer from TL 9 or so up was artillery which became incredibly effective due to: better comms and computing/command and control, high rates of fire through mass drivers or MRLs with a lot of tubes, and laser designation. A standard tactic became one of designating a point a few metres from the target so it wouldn't trip any laser sensors then bring down some indirect fire with a limited random beaten zone. This used far fewer rounds to take out a tank than shelling them with WW2 tech arty systems. Adding significant armour to the deck of an MBT was a non-starter at any tech level. The main counter for the armour (and the footsloggers for that matter) was point defence anti-artillery systems and frequent shifting of position if only 100m or so laterally. As ever logistics generally carried the day: who had the most ammo available in that battlespace? The artillery or the anti-artillery point defence systems?
(Counter battery fire was made ineffective by the widespread use of disposable MRLs).
Final 2 observations: From TL8 onwards the humble air/raft became an invaluable asset to any force for scouting, casualty evacuation, ammo re-supply, carrying support weapons around etc.
After TL 13 things got super mental pretty quickly
OK but without the benefit of a time machine and if I'm not allowed to refer to the CT rules especially designed for the issue it all comes down to guesswork and my guess as pretty much as I outlined a couple of posts above at least for a few TLs above our present.
Reasons: the need to have heavy armour on the front facing leaving other facings relatively (and to a large extent absolutely) weak, as cost and mass have to be considered as well as leaving enough internal volume after adding armour without making the vehicle an enormous target that you couldn't fail to detect or hit. Aerodynamic qualities for high speed a very low design priority as fast combat elements would just sit around waiting for the logistics tail to catch up.
If it had to be egg-shaped I'd want a flat belly so I could get low to the ground, for ease of transportation in space transports and so it didn't roll over when you turned the engine off!
Reasons: the need to have heavy armour on the front facing leaving other facings relatively (and to a large extent absolutely) weak, as cost and mass have to be considered as well as leaving enough internal volume after adding armour without making the vehicle an enormous target that you couldn't fail to detect or hit. Aerodynamic qualities for high speed a very low design priority as fast combat elements would just sit around waiting for the logistics tail to catch up.
If it had to be egg-shaped I'd want a flat belly so I could get low to the ground, for ease of transportation in space transports and so it didn't roll over when you turned the engine off!
DaveT said:
If one assumes even improvement of current electronics & adds anti-grav it is not difficult. Throw CT out the window as the author had almost no good knowledge of tech, even of the late 70's.
I don't remember saying that the tank wouldn't put out gear to set down. Do you think that cylindrical aircraft roll over on their side after landing??? I am simply stating what the functional requirements would likely force when creating FORM.
So am I. Flat belly means lower silhouette and no need to use up valuable hull space with landing gear. In a high tech galaxy, not every soldier in every battle will be equipped with high tech I would say so being harder to spot with the Mark 1 Eyeball and hit with a point and shoot weapon are good qualities for a combat vehicle. Not all soldiers will have some form or radar/ladar/IR/whatever but I assume most of them will have at least 2 eyes (barring space pirates, arrggh).
DaveT said:
You need to study how tanks die. It isn't from soldiers on the ground...
Once you have that subject under your belt so to speak, you'll see what the requirements are. Also, a flat form uses FAR more material and has much added weight for the same volume interior as a spherical shape. Much worse than accommodating small, fold out landing struts.Well how do you know what I have studied?
Anyway you keep using the present tense but the original question was about the future, no? I'm not sure how you have so much factual information about battlefields of the future.
I told you how tanks die in the future I visited - by artillery directed by...wait for it...soldiers on the ground.
Anyway you keep using the present tense but the original question was about the future, no? I'm not sure how you have so much factual information about battlefields of the future.
I told you how tanks die in the future I visited - by artillery directed by...wait for it...soldiers on the ground.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's pretty much a game of dispersal, with the drones acting as cannon fodder.
F33D said:
I have never engaged in a discussion about modern airpower versus modern armour. You are the one having that discussion with yourself when you're not taking the trouble to tell everyone they are wrong whenever they post anything on this forum. Unbelievable. Do you behave like this when face to face with people?
Indirect fire can be stopped, or slowed, with point defense. Oddly enough it actually exists at the vehicle level as it should be, as opposed to using the equivalent of 5' guns in space. And armor that is equipped to resist direct hits from fusion weapons is going to be a tough-nut to crack with standard artillery.
When I was in the Army I worked the MLRS system. "Cheap" disposable rocket launcher systems seem an oxymoron to me, because 'cheap' and 'disposable' don't often fit into the same order of battle when it comes to sophisticated artillery. You still need all the same stuff you have with a normal artillery unit, except you aren't going to be reloading.
We could blanket a grid square with 12 rockets in about 60 seconds. The standard round was the bomblet, with each rocket containing hundreds. Anything dug in was safe, and tanks were more or less safe unless we managed to hit the 50gal drum on the back, or get very, very luck with an engine deck hit. All your gear on the outside was toast though... Anything else we could shred pretty easily. If you were going to be using laser designators the rounds are going to home in on the laser, so they'd hit in front of your tanks. Plus as soon as the round left the horizon counterbattery would pick it up and relay that info to any point defense nearby, and the tanks themselves. I suppose you could build a seeker that was programmable, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a seeker. It seems your asking for as much inaccuracy there as possible, and it would be better to have the artillery battery firing blindly at your coordinates. Which, by the way, would be pretty damn close with good crews and good gear.
As for the other discussion you guys are having, well, I don't have a dog in that fight. It's difficult sometimes to scale up today's tech to tomorrow's warfare because things can radically change, and sometimes they stay the same. I, personally, don't see tons of difference in warfare in the future of Traveller. People are higher tech, weapons are higher tech, but the basics of warfare haven't changed. The mechanics just seem to be different. Artillery still works the same (indirect or direct), tanks still would be tanks, and infantry are still the key to winning any battle. It's just that instead of rocks & dirks, catapults and cannons, they'll be using gauss rifles and plasma guns.
When I was in the Army I worked the MLRS system. "Cheap" disposable rocket launcher systems seem an oxymoron to me, because 'cheap' and 'disposable' don't often fit into the same order of battle when it comes to sophisticated artillery. You still need all the same stuff you have with a normal artillery unit, except you aren't going to be reloading.
We could blanket a grid square with 12 rockets in about 60 seconds. The standard round was the bomblet, with each rocket containing hundreds. Anything dug in was safe, and tanks were more or less safe unless we managed to hit the 50gal drum on the back, or get very, very luck with an engine deck hit. All your gear on the outside was toast though... Anything else we could shred pretty easily. If you were going to be using laser designators the rounds are going to home in on the laser, so they'd hit in front of your tanks. Plus as soon as the round left the horizon counterbattery would pick it up and relay that info to any point defense nearby, and the tanks themselves. I suppose you could build a seeker that was programmable, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a seeker. It seems your asking for as much inaccuracy there as possible, and it would be better to have the artillery battery firing blindly at your coordinates. Which, by the way, would be pretty damn close with good crews and good gear.
As for the other discussion you guys are having, well, I don't have a dog in that fight. It's difficult sometimes to scale up today's tech to tomorrow's warfare because things can radically change, and sometimes they stay the same. I, personally, don't see tons of difference in warfare in the future of Traveller. People are higher tech, weapons are higher tech, but the basics of warfare haven't changed. The mechanics just seem to be different. Artillery still works the same (indirect or direct), tanks still would be tanks, and infantry are still the key to winning any battle. It's just that instead of rocks & dirks, catapults and cannons, they'll be using gauss rifles and plasma guns.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
"Newer anti-tank missiles have pop-up capability that can just destroy older tanks."
I remember years ago on a show about modern warfare tech showing these units fired over a battlefield and spinning so the down facing camera search for specific top tank profiles then fired its charge down at the more vulnerable top armor.
"I can see a tank designer in the far future looking at the bottom armor as a place to raid in order to put that precious mass somewhere else."
Something that would give them nightmares are the disposable Surface to Air Missile and Anti-Tank packs that can be manually set up or air dropped in the path of intended targets and go unobserved until sensors detect targets. Those things could be hell for grav tanks heading for a theater or battlefield and still flying high. Same with forward infantry units with Anti-Gravtank man portable missiles packs. The use of Anti-Gravtank support vehicles keep a battlefield dangerous as AT and SAM/AA does today.
This is why I loved the old minis game Combined Arms. A lot of the formation and function of units in those forces can be extended to far future weapons and tactics.
I remember years ago on a show about modern warfare tech showing these units fired over a battlefield and spinning so the down facing camera search for specific top tank profiles then fired its charge down at the more vulnerable top armor.
"I can see a tank designer in the far future looking at the bottom armor as a place to raid in order to put that precious mass somewhere else."
Something that would give them nightmares are the disposable Surface to Air Missile and Anti-Tank packs that can be manually set up or air dropped in the path of intended targets and go unobserved until sensors detect targets. Those things could be hell for grav tanks heading for a theater or battlefield and still flying high. Same with forward infantry units with Anti-Gravtank man portable missiles packs. The use of Anti-Gravtank support vehicles keep a battlefield dangerous as AT and SAM/AA does today.
This is why I loved the old minis game Combined Arms. A lot of the formation and function of units in those forces can be extended to far future weapons and tactics.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
"I also figure that energy weapons would probably be better than weapons that require ammo. Otherwise the endurance of the craft (consider Trav type PP's) would be wasted by running out of ammo and thus cut its combat effectiveness."
You are right. A tank with the ability to outrun it's supply lines (until they take the ground to move the lines up) does need a weapon not vulnerable to supply for as long as possible. Considering grav tech will parallel energy weapon tech, tanks will upgrade quick but, as many Traveller rule sets have shown, there is a LOT of compromise as energy hog weapons want more power from bigger power plants that need bigger grav modules to lift it all that also need more power... I've spent many a hair pulling session finding the sweet zone for so many such vehicles from TL 9 to TL 15. You never get the supertank... ever. And you always realize why tanks have support and the support can keep up with the tanks.
You are right. A tank with the ability to outrun it's supply lines (until they take the ground to move the lines up) does need a weapon not vulnerable to supply for as long as possible. Considering grav tech will parallel energy weapon tech, tanks will upgrade quick but, as many Traveller rule sets have shown, there is a LOT of compromise as energy hog weapons want more power from bigger power plants that need bigger grav modules to lift it all that also need more power... I've spent many a hair pulling session finding the sweet zone for so many such vehicles from TL 9 to TL 15. You never get the supertank... ever. And you always realize why tanks have support and the support can keep up with the tanks.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I expect Bouncing Bettys placed along likely approaches to go after that bottom armour.
I also expect ground based artillery to have smart warheads, and seek targets, so that the cost of destroying said target equals that of area saturation with indiscriminate munitions.
Carpet bombing will probably be the province of ortillery.
I also expect ground based artillery to have smart warheads, and seek targets, so that the cost of destroying said target equals that of area saturation with indiscriminate munitions.
Carpet bombing will probably be the province of ortillery.
